Mandatory Schooling: Good Or Bad?

[Era Might]

[quote name='Hassan' date='28 September 2009 - 02:27 PM' timestamp='1254162427' post='1973808']
No, I'm saying that the piece of paper certifies, at least theoretically, that the individuals has the attributes I listed (and misspelled). Does that mean that an individual without a college degree or even a high school degree can't have all of those attributes? Absolutely not.[/quote]
A diploma only certifies that the individual has satisfied the institution's requirements.

[quote]The piece of paper doesn't mean anything dude. The piece of paper is just a piece of paper. What gets an individual more opportunities is the official recognition, by an institution yes, that they are trained to that institutions standards in a particular field. Recon Marines get a quaint little brass badge to wear on their uniforms after finishing their schools (and they are schools, scout sniper school, airborne school, SERE school etcetera) does the badge make them tough? Do we only care what a badge says about them? Could someone without their "schooling" be just as bad? I suppose. The little piece of brass isn't what gets them respect. It's what the badge represents. That they have received training in a particular skill set to the standards of the institution of the USMC and are therefore qualified to do a certain set of jobs most individuals are not. A piece of paper from MIT is just a sheet of paper. The fact that the individual applying for the job has been certified by one of the most respected and prestigious scientific institutions in the world as being trained in a particular skill set and trained to that institutions standards by the most respected and qualified individuals in that field, however, is worth a lot.[/quote]
Training is fine. But the modern schooling system is not the only way to train people. It's just that schooling has come to exercise a monopoly on training. It's not enough for society that you have been trained; society requires you to be trained by someone approved by an educational institution.

[quote]I'm not saying it's logically impossible for an individual to accumulate throughout the course of their "real world experience" the same level of competence and education in chemical engineering as an MIT graduate, but it sure isn't common.[/quote]
Society doesn't allow it to happen, so it can't become common (not that it necessarily would). Society sees school as the place where "training" happens. So that's really the only place someone can go to get the resources they need to be trained. But note, people do not need SCHOOLS, they need RESOURCES. Schools are not the only way to provide resources.

I'm not sure what you mean by "real world experience." Just because someone is in the real world doesn't mean they don't have to study to learn things. They still need resources to learn whatever it is they want to learn.

The question society should be asking is not, "How can we teach people what they need to learn." Rather, society should be asking "How can we provide resources that people might need if they wanted to learn."

[quote]It does not prove it, however it provides powerful evidence. Everyone gets bored at school, everyone gets sick of it. One person says and gets their worthless piece of paper, one person drops out because they're tired of it and want to feel more alive. Who are you going to bet on? Who seems more likely to stick with the job and be a dependable employee and who seems more likely to decide one day that they don't feel sufficiently "alive" doing this work and are quitting?
[/quote]
Okay, so a diploma provides evidence that a person is capable of cooperating with an institution's demands. I'm not denying that. What I'm denying is that it proves anything about the person themselves.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Era Might' date='28 September 2009 - 02:35 PM' timestamp='1254162905' post='1973820']
A diploma only certifies that the individual has satisfied the institution's requirements.[/QUOTE]

That is exactly what it certifies. That is why a degree in engineering from MIT is more valuable tat a degree in engineering from Bob Jones. MIT is an institution which commands great respect. Foreign Militaries send their soldiers to be trained in a particular skill set by our institution (our military) and certified that they have met that institutions standards in that particular field because our military institution commands a great deal of respect and has a long and consistent record of training individuals in a particular skill set and training them well. Very few foreign soldiers are send to Slovenian Scout Sniper School.

[QUOTE]Training is fine. But the modern schooling system is not the only way to train people. It's just that schooling has come to exercise a monopoly on it.[/QUOTE]

What other ways would you like to train someone?




[QUOTE]It isn't common because society doesn't allow it to happen.[/QUOTE]

Society didn't block me from being an MIT trained engineer. I'm not studying engineering at MIT because of don't have the ability to be an engineer period, much less pass the requirements MIT sets up for the individuals it trains to be engineers. This is also the case for most people who droped out of High School.

[QUOTE]Society sees school as the place where "training" happens.[/QUOTE]

That's because it is the place in society where training happens. You could tinker with the social institution all you want, but I suspect you'd just get the same pig with a different colour lipstick.

[QUOTE]So that's really the only place someone can go to get the resources they need to be trained. But note, people do not need SCHOOLS, they need RESOURCES. Schools are not the only way to provide resources.[/QUOTE]

Yes, individuals need resources and employers need someway of verifying that the individual has a particular skill set and personality traits that he or she wants. Get rid of schools. Just have everyone get all the text books they need to master a particular field and let them take a test whereby an employer can judge their competency in a field. They're still going to go hardest for the individuals who completes their studying in the shortest amount of time. Because it's strong evidence that the individual can both master the material intellectually and has the drive and determination to follow through on what they set out to do. It'd be a different system but you'd have the same complaints.


[QUOTE]Okay, so a diploma provides evidence that a person is able to cooperate with an institution's demands. I'm not denying that. What I'm denying is that it proves anything about the person themselves.
[/quote]

It proves a number of things about the person themselves. Like their competency in a given field and their ability to work through to their goals. If you mean more esoteric qualities like their moral value as human being, how much they've grown and matured as an individual et cetera then you are absolutely right. John Nash's degrees and published paper said very little about him as a human being before he got his professorship. Those degrees said little about the fact that he was a racist, an anti-Semite, and just generally a real jerk. And yet that didn't matter. MIT, like most prospective employers, didn't care much about his moral worth as a human being. It cared about his ability to do extraordinary work in mathematics, game theory, and physics.

Edited September 28, 2009 by Hassan

[Hassan]

[quote name='Era Might' date='28 September 2009 - 02:35 PM' timestamp='1254162905' post='1973820']


I'm not sure what you mean by "real world experience." Just because someone is in the real world doesn't mean they don't have to study to learn things. They still need resources to learn whatever it is they want to learn.[/QUOTE]

Work in a tobacco field for a day and then decide how much energy you have left to learn. Not saying it doesn't or couldn't happen, just that it's rare.

The questi[QUOTE]on society should be asking is not, "How can we teach people what they need to learn." Rather, society should be asking "How can we provide resources that people might need if they wanted to learn."
[/quote]

That'd be admirable, but totally divorced from reality.

[Hassan]

BTW I'm not saying that simply because someone doesn't have a degree doesn't mean that they don't have the potential to have a particular degree.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Hassan' date='28 September 2009 - 02:56 PM' timestamp='1254164184' post='1973840']
That is exactly what it certifies.[/quote]
Okay, so we agree on that.

[quote]What other ways would you like to train someone?[/quote]
I don't have any ways I would like to train someone. I believe people should be allowed to train however they want to train. An employer should be concerned with whether a person is trained, not with how they were trained.

[quote]Society didn't block me from being an MIT trained engineer. I'm not studying engineering at MIT because of don't have the ability to be an engineer period, much less pass the requirements MIT sets up for the individuals it trains to be engineers.[/quote]
MIT is only valuable because of its resources. As long as you have resources, you don't need an institution. But when institutions monopolize the resources, then that leads to a society in which schooling is equated with learning.

[quote]That's because it is the place in society where training happens.[/quote]
Yes, I agree. Society has chosen schools as the place where training happens. What I am arguing, however, is that schools are not synonomous with learning/training. Schools are simply the places where modern society concentrates its resources for learning and training.

[quote]You could tinker with the social institution all you want, but I suspect you'd just get the same pig with a different colour lipstick.[/quote]
Indeed. I don't believe we need a reform of educational institutions. I believe we need a reform of the entire way we view learning. In other words, we need to stop equating schooling with learning.

[quote]Yes, individuals need resources and employers need someway of verifying that the individual has a particular skill set and personality traits that he or she wants. Get rid of schools. Just have everyone get all the text books they need to master a particular field and let them take a test whereby an employer can judge their competency in a field. They're still going to go hardest for the individuals who completes their studying in the shortest amount of time. Because it's strong evidence that the individual can both master the material intellectually and has the drive and determination to follow through on what they set out to do. It'd be a different system but you'd have the same complaints.[/quote]
You don't need to get rid of schools. But you do need to stop making schools necessary for social advancement. Allow people to choose their own methods of learning. And stop trying to teach people who don't want to learn. Society thinks it needs to teach people things. Why not just let people discover the world on their own? If they want to go to a school to do so, then they can go to school. But they shouldn't be required to attend an educational institution in order to discover the world around them.

[quote]It proves a number of things about the person themselves. Like their competency in a given field and their ability to work through to their goals.[/quote]
A diploma does not prove competency. It proves that the person has satisfied the institution's expectations. Whether or not the person is competent can only be known when they start working.

As far as working through your goals, what if finishing school is not one of your goals? Should you finish school just to accomplish someone else's goal?

[quote]If you mean more esoteric qualities like their moral value as human being, how much they've grown and matured as an individual et cetera then you are absolutely right. John Nash's degrees and published paper said very little about him as a human being before he got his professorship. Those degrees said little about the fact that he was a racist, an anti-Semite, and just generally a real jerk. And yet that didn't matter. MIT, like most prospective employers, didn't care much about his moral worth as a human being. It cared about his ability to do extraordinary work in mathematics, game theory, and physics.[/quote]
Okay. MIT graduates can do extraordinary work in mathematics, game theory, and physics. That's no surprise, since MIT provides the resources for them to learn those things. My point is that just because society concentrates its educational resources in an institution, doesn't mean that institution is the cause of people's learning. What about all the people who could never afford to go to MIT? An institution necessarily creates a new elite, which is based on one's institutional credentials. Those who cannot go to the institution (especially the poor) are excluded from the elite.

Society needs to do is think of ways to make educational resources available to everyone, not just to people who go to MIT. And society must not equate "educational resources" with "schools."

[Era Might]

[quote name='Hassan' date='28 September 2009 - 03:01 PM' timestamp='1254164500' post='1973845']
Work in a tobacco field for a day and then decide how much energy you have left to learn. Not saying it doesn't or couldn't happen, just that it's rare.[/quote]
Working in a tobacco field can itself be an opportunity to learn.

[quote]That'd be admirable, but totally divorced from reality.
[/quote]
We will have to disagree. I don't believe it is society's job to indoctrinate people in what they supposedly need to learn. I believe society should merely facilitate resources for learning.

It's ironic that you say letting people learn on their own initiative and with their own approach is "divorced from reality." There is nothing more divorced from reality than a school. We isolate people in schools to teach them about the real world, rather than letting them actually go out into the real world and learn.

[Hassan]

[color=red]Sorry, I accidently pressed "edit" instead of "reply," so I posted over your post. I have part of it quoted in my post though. --Era Might[/color]

[Era Might]

[quote]You act as though the indoctrination is arbitrary.[/quote]
I was thinking of mandatory public school when I referred to indoctrination. And I do think much of it is arbitrary. Why must every child study literature? I love literature, but it's not something we need to set up public schools to teach people. That's what ruins learning, turning it into a mandatory curriculum, rather than letting it be a free and leisurely pursuit of wisdom.

[quote]It is. Learning requires resources. Someone has to pay for those resources. If you show particular aptitude in mastering a valuable field of study then often times the government or a corporation will help ensure you have access to those resources, if not you buy them. I also believe that education reform would be a great thing and that higher education should be more available to people with a desire and ability to enter it. However no learning is every apolitical or divorced from the needs of the larger society.[/quote]
Society is already paying for every child to "learn." All the money we spend on schooling children could be better spent by making educational resources available to everyone. Why should a child have more right to tax-funded educational resources than an adult? Why is our tax money restricted to people under 18 years of age? We could, for example, give every citizen a certain amount of educational credits, and they could use them whenever they wanted to throughout their life. But that wouldn't work in the modern schooling system, because modern schooling is not just about learning, it is also one big nursery for children where they are supposedly prepared for the world outside. That sets up a system where the richer kids are inevitably going to perform better, and the poorer kids are going to lag behind. And then society's solution to the poorer kids lagging behind is...yes, you guessed it, society's solution is MORE schooling.

One of the myths of schooling is that it creates equal opportunity. But it doesn't, because what is being funded is not merely resources to learn, but also all the extraneous costs that schooling produces (teachers, extracurricular activities, etc). Thus, not every student is receiving the exact same funding for learning. Furthermore, children are allowed to attend public schools regardless of their family's income, so even if rich and poor children have the same public school environment, they are bringing very different socioeconomic backgrounds to that environment; schooling does not suddenly neutralize a person's socioeconomic advantage or disadvantage.

I don't want society to try to make so-called "higher education" more available, because no matter how much you try to make it more available, it is still of its nature creating a special elite that excludes everyone who does not attend the institution. The more you try to make schooling the norm and available to everyone, the more the educational institutions grow and exercise more and more of a monopoly over learning. If we were to take the energy and money spent on schooling, and redirect it to making educational resources available to everyone to use (including adults), then perhaps we could create a real civic culture. But society equates "educational resources" with schooling, and so we waste our energy and money on educational institutions that will always require more energy and more money.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Hassan' date='28 September 2009 - 03:42 PM' timestamp='1254166921' post='1973873']
[color=red]Sorry, I accidently pressed "edit" instead of "reply," so I posted over your post. I have part of it quoted in my post though. --Era Might[/color]
[/quote]
I did that once.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Era Might' date='28 September 2009 - 06:08 PM' timestamp='1254175725' post='1973948'] That's what ruins learning, turning it into a mandatory curriculum, rather than letting it be a free and leisurely pursuit of wisdom.[/QUOTE]

the point of mandatory classes is to provide a foundation from which children can move into areas that interest them. Who do you think should teach children? Parents? In that case the poor kids would be even worse off. What about learning that few children would take interest in during their leisurely pursuits of other wisdom but will later prove essential to their being able to function as adults in the world. How many second graders are just rearing to go and learn those multiplication tables?

[QUOTE]Society is already paying for every child to "learn." All the money we spend on schooling children could be better spent by making educational resources available to everyone. Why should a child have more right to tax-funded educational resources than an adult?[/QUOTE]

That adult did have tax funded educational resources. I guess why hey don't now is because we probably don't have the resources to give equal educational opportunities to 300,000,000 individuals, for them to study at their leisure in some Socratic pursuit of wisdom.

[QUOTE]Why is our tax money restricted to people under 18 years of age? We could, for example, give every citizen a certain amount of educational credits, and they could use them whenever they wanted to throughout their life. But that wouldn't work in the modern schooling system, because modern schooling is not just about learning, it is also one big nursery for children where they are supposedly prepared for the world outside.

That sets up a system where the richer kids are inevitably going to perform better, and the poorer kids are going to lag behind. And then society's solution to the poorer kids lagging behind is...yes, you guessed it, society's solution is MORE schooling.[/QUOTE]

Do you think the rich would not going to have an advantage if people are educated at their own pace through the personal use of education credits? Are the rich kid's parents suddenly going to be unable to hire top of the line tutors to help their kids acquire the skills they need to dominate in whatever career they wish to go into? Are poor kids suddenly going to be able to pursue their leisurely studies in an environment without gangs outside and a broken home?



[QUOTE]I don't want society to try to make so-called "higher education" more available, because no matter how much you try to make it more available, it is still of its nature creating a special elite that excludes everyone who does not attend the institution.[/QUOTE]

The social stratification exists prior to the educational establishment. The school doesn't make parents rich or give the child the genetic and environmental antecedents to do elementary differential equations when they're 17.

[QUOTE]The more you try to make schooling the norm and available to everyone, the more the educational institutions grow and exercise more and more of a monopoly over learning. If we were to take the energy and money spent on schooling, and redirect it to making educational resources available to everyone to use (including adults), then perhaps we could create a real civic culture. But society equates "educational resources" with schooling, and so we waste our energy and money on educational institutions that will always require more energy and more money.
[/quote]

How long has public education and the necessity of college education been emphasized in the US? Would you like to compare the level of education of American's prior to these social trends compared to them now?

No, a black kid from a poor family does not have the same opportunities as a rich, white kid. A white kids from a middle class family does not have the same opportunities as a kid from a wealthy family. As it is now, however, the poor kid has a chance of being exposed to Shakespeare in his literature class. If he were simply left to chart his own educational course he probably would not have this opportunity as he probably has few family or friends who are well read in 17th century British Literature.

Edited September 29, 2009 by Hassan

[Era Might]

[quote name='Hassan' date='29 September 2009 - 03:27 AM' timestamp='1254209237' post='1974205']
the point of mandatory classes is to provide a foundation from which children can move into areas that interest them. Who do you think should teach children? Parents? In that case the poor kids would be even worse off. What about learning that few children would take interest in during their leisurely pursuits of other wisdom but will later prove essential to their being able to function as adults in the world. How many second graders are just rearing to go and learn those multiplication tables?[/quote]
You're making my point. Modern schooling is not merely about learning. The school system is a big nursery that exists to protect children from their parents and from themselves.

Why do people work? Because they know they have to work in order to survive. You don't need the government to force people to work. It's the same with learning. If people feel that learning something is necessary (either for their job or for their own personal enrichment), then they will take the initiative to learn. It's not society's job to "teach" them. Society's role should be to help make available educational resources for those who do want to learn. And as I said, "educational resources" should not be equated with schooling. The government should not create institutional parents in the form of schools. Kids have real parents to guide them. One of the problems today is that we have lost any sense of wider community, so that when a child's parents does not guide them properly (for whatever reason), we think they need the help of an institution, rather than the help of real people in their community.

[quote]That adult did have tax funded educational resources. I guess why hey don't now is because we probably don't have the resources to give equal educational opportunities to 300,000,000 individuals, for them to study at their leisure in some Socratic pursuit of wisdom.[/quote]
Even if you just take the money that you DO have, you can use it to provide educational resources to however many people you can, rather than wasting that money on institutions that create a society where people believe they can't do anything without attending an institution.

[quote]Do you think the rich would not going to have an advantage if people are educated at their own pace through the personal use of education credits? Are the rich kid's parents suddenly going to be unable to hire top of the line tutors to help their kids acquire the skills they need to dominate in whatever career they wish to go into? Are poor kids suddenly going to be able to pursue their leisurely studies in an environment without gangs outside and a broken home?[/quote]
The rich may still have advantages without schools; but without mandatory schooling, at least we wouldn't have to waste millions of tax-dollars reinforcing those advantages.

[quote]The social stratification exists prior to the educational establishment. The school doesn't make parents rich or give the child the genetic and environmental antecedents to do elementary differential equations when they're 17.[/quote]
Modern schooling does not create social stratification, it just creates NEW FORMS of it. Modern schooling creates a new aristocracy, where your place in society is largely dependent, not on acquired knowledge or experience, but on how many years you have been in an educational institution.

[quote]How long has public education and the necessity of college education been emphasized in the US? Would you like to compare the level of education of American's prior to these social trends compared to them now?[/quote]
Schooling as we know it today is of very recent origin. It only arose with industrialization, and its purpose is very much tied up with how people in the West viewed society at that time around nineteenth century.

[quote]No, a black kid from a poor family does not have the same opportunities as a rich, white kid. A white kids from a middle class family does not have the same opportunities as a kid from a wealthy family. As it is now, however, the poor kid has a chance of being exposed to Shakespeare in his literature class. If he were simply left to chart his own educational course he probably would not have this opportunity as he probably has few family or friends who are well read in 17th century British Literature.[/quote]
Again, you're making my point. Modern schooling exists to protect people from their family and from themselves; it does not exist merely for people to learn.

Getting rid of mandatory schooling does not require people to "chart their own educational course." It does require them to take their own initiative. But one of the educational resources that society could make available is specialists who can help a person determine what books and materials they need in order to study what they want to learn. The specialists would not be "teachers," but rather consultants who help facilitate people's learning. A teacher is expected to do more than teach, a teacher is expected to be a nanny, a psychologist, etc. With educational consultants, the role of the consultant would be strictly defined by his job to help facilitate learning. He would not be there for "nap time" or to send kids to the principal's office.

I have a very easy way to introduce people to literature that doesn't require wasting all the money we waste on educational institutions. The government could fund reading centers, which could make literature available for people to read. It could hire specialists whom the public could consult about what books might be good to read, based on their interests. And perhaps every person could be given credit for a certain amount of hours in which they can consult with hired specialists about the literature they're reading, and ask questions. Beyond that, people could form their own groups to discuss literature. This kind of system would cost next to nothing. Instead, we build educational institutions based on the assumption that people can't experience Shakespeare unless it's "taught" to them in schools.